


A Mirror in the Palm of Your Hand

by inlaterdays



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: M/M, Sex, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 23:06:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2485547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlaterdays/pseuds/inlaterdays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place after both Erik and the Persian are established in Paris, but before Erik has met Christine. Written for the phanficxchange LJ community and later posted to FFN.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anjou Pears

_I am nothing, just a mirror in the palm of your hand,  
Reflecting your kindness, your sadness, your anger.  
\- Rumi, "Hidden Music"_

My little flat in the Rue de Rivoli was by no means luxurious, but I found it comfortable enough. My modest pension allowed me the freedom to enjoy the necessities of life without worry (and amongst those I count the inestimable Darius), as well as the occasional small luxury.

Today's indulgences were an Anjou pear and poetry. I had my book open flat in my lap so that I could read without soiling the pages. I sat in my usual armchair by the window overlooking the garden of the Tuileries, enjoying the beauty of the fading autumn day and cutting up the pear with a small silver fruit-knife, when I heard a knock at the door.

I knew who it would be even before Darius opened the door to admit Erik. Though it was usually I who followed him, on rare occasions he came to seek me. Darius took his cloak and hat and retired discreetly, while I gestured to the armchair opposite to my own. Erik, however, preferred to stand next to me, crooking his neck to look at my book.

I was in dressing-gown, shirt, and trousers, and my visitor was not much more formally dressed, lacking cravat, waistcoat, and gloves. He tended to dress more casually than was his usual wont when he came to see me on certain occasions. His forehead gleamed like white marble over the top of his mask, as did his chin below. The rest of his face, with the exception of his eyes, was hidden.

"What is that you're reading?" he asked, beginning the conversation with no preface, and with his characteristic disdain for the usual protocol of greeting. "Sufis again, I expect?"

"You used to like them, too," I reminded him.

"That was long ago and far away," he said, dismissively.

"Not so long and not that far."

He hmphed, finally settling his spare frame in the empty armchair. "Poetry that's supposed to be all about God but which sounds more like a love-song." It was a statement, not a question, but I answered anyway.

"The Sufi mystics do and did often speak of their God as the Beloved," I said, though he knew it as well as I did. He liked to put me on the defensive, and I could never resist rising to his bait. "The point is that Love, wherever it exists, is divine in origin. The longing of earthly lovers is like the yearning of the poets for union with God."

"Or so they say," he sneered, provoking me intentionally.

"'In Love no longer 'thou' and 'I' exist," I quoted, "For Self has passed away in the Beloved. Now I will draw aside the veil – '"

"Attar," he said. "I remember. I like this one of his better: 'This world is like a closed coffin, in which we are shut and in which, through our ignorance, we spend our lives in folly and desolation.'"

"That one ends more hopefully, though, with wings flying to Eternity. You've only quoted the depressing bit."

"That's the bit I like."

There was no arguing with him when he was determined to be perverse. I gave it up, changing the subject. "To what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

"The usual reason," he said, carelessly, but sliding me a glance with those deep-set yellow eyes; a glance I could read, even through the mask, though his next words belied his thoughts. "To ask whether you have any interesting news. One can't stay in the cellars all the time, you know."

Here I was in a bit of a quandary, for I spent nearly as much time shut up underneath the Opera as he did; he doing whatever it was he did down there, I, following him around and trying to figure out what he was up to – and well he knew it. I offered him what news I had.

"For one thing, they're working on the Opera again."

"As if I couldn't hear the hammering! When _aren't_ they working on the Opera?" he groaned.

"Well, then, there are some new girls coming from the _conservatoire_."

"For the chorus or the ballet?"

"Both, I believe."

"Then I've heard this, too! I don't know why I bother asking," he laughed. "I always know things before you do – always, daroga! Anyway, this lot is sure to be nothing but another   
bunch of shrieking schoolgirls. Not a real talent in the bunch, I'll wager."

"They've taken in girls from all over, this time," I said. "They're not just French girls. There's an _angloise_ , a Swede, a Finn –"

He gave another short bark of laughter. "Yes! A Swede! They are expecting another Jenny Lind. Hah! And Finns have no voices. Perhaps the English girl may come to something…" he looked thoughtful for a moment.

"Well, you shall hear them soon, and then you can make all the rude remarks you please," said I. I decided to be rude myself and eat in front of him, since my pear was quickly browning. I popped a slice in my mouth.

Erik peered hungrily at it. "Is that an Anjou pear?"

"Indeed it is. Would you like one?"

He nodded, and I signaled to Darius, who brought him a pear and a serviette.

Erik's manners were of a piece with the rest of his behavior: an odd combination of the extremely formal and the barbaric. Though he could be quite dainty over a meal, he liked to gnaw at his fruit, sinking his teeth into the flesh. He did not get fresh fruit often, and liked to relish it when he did. He was not tidy during this process, and I liked to watch it. He ate with animal pleasure, taking large bites; his crooked mouth was not well-shaped for this approach, and the juice ran down his chin.

I often wondered how it was that he produced such beautiful sounds with those strange lips and that pale throat – or was that the secret?

"How you stare," Erik glowered, wiping his chin. "Really, it quite unnerves one. What's on your mind?"

_As if you didn't know…_ I popped another slice in my mouth, chewing slowly and looking him directly in the eyes.

The skin at the base of his neck darkened, and I knew he had read my thoughts.

"No," he said. He had always to make a show of resistance.

"You used to let me." _More often than you do now…_

"You make too much of it. It's that blasted poetry. You should not think of it."

"And you do not?"

"Not as you do," he said. This stung, for I knew it to be true. I popped the last slice in my mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

"Those were good days," I said.

"Those days led to my damnation." He looked out the window, though the garden was growing dim in the fading afternoon light.

_You're alive, Erik,_ I wanted to shout. _Alive. If you are damned it's by your own hand and your own mind. Change. Live your life; I know you hunger for it. Reach out for it. Taste it greedily as you did the pear…_

His gaze returned from the window to my face. "What shall I do with these?" He held up the pear stem and the crumpled serviette.

"Darius will take them."

"Darius doesn't have to bother with my pear-stem!"

"Well, here he is, all the same."

Darius duly appeared and removed the offending items; he took the plate and fruit-knife from the table by elbow as well, then silently vanished to see to their proper disposal. Dusk was now beginning to fall, so my ever-vigilant servant reappeared directly, lighting the lamps and drawing the blinds. Erik and I sat quietly, companionably, waiting for these tasks to be finished; each lost in his own thoughts. I studied him out of the corner of my eye, though I pretended to have gone back to reading my book. I knew he was aware of my scrutiny and that he consciously tolerated it.

_What you don't realize,_ I thought, _is that your very monstrousness makes you desirable. The unique is often irresistible; who does not, in their heart of hearts, long for a demon lover or for a fallen angel?_

_You'd find lovers aplenty were you content to be bedded for the thrill, that frisson of fear; for the sheer novelty of what you are. But no, you must be loved for yourself, and by one of your own choosing, or spurn love of any kind entirely, you who take such care to hide the very thing you long to be loved for. Your true self, your innermost feelings. Erik's secrets. I would dare to touch your essence, you monster, you wonder, but you won't let me in…_

_Our views on many things are not so different, my dear friend, if you'd only consent to realize it._

I cast my gaze down at my book again. A line from Rabia seemed to leap from the page. _In love, nothing exists between heart and heart. Speech is born out of longing._

I, of course, was the first to break the silence, once Darius had finished and had left the room. He would not come back now unless summoned; he could be trusted. Erik had fallen into a brown study and appeared to be lost in his own thoughts.

"What really brings you here on this fine autumn evening, my friend?"

"Is it autumn, daroga? All seasons are alike to me underground."

"You should not hide yourself away."

He laughed bitterly. "It would mean my head and your pension were I to be found out."

"The government of Tehran is convinced you are dead. You'd be safe enough. I'm not suggesting you should go on the stage."

"And what are you suggesting?" he said, becoming serious.

_Why do you come to me, and then make me ask? I know why you have come tonight; these times happen so rarely, but you are different when you hunger. I can always tell. You'll never admit it, though, not even to yourself. You crave this bittersweet torment, the longing, the withholding, even the pain, just as I crave the joining, the union with the beloved._

"What do you think?" I rested my elbows on the arms of the chair, steepling my fingers. "Perhaps you should get what you came for."

We looked at each other. He did not like the ball tossed back into his court, where _this_ was concerned.

"Well?" I said.

"Erik has changed his mind," he said, sulkily.

"Does Erik need to be…persuaded?" My tones were silky, but I saw him shiver with pleasure at the implied threat. As if I'd ever really harm him. As if I _could_. But that was how he liked the game to be played, when he'd consent to play at all. Poor Erik, the unwilling (yet eager) victim. Poor Erik, who sought out and embraced his own torments in reparation for sins real and imagined.

I stood up, stroking my chin, and walked over to his chair to loom over him, though we both knew who really held the reins. And it was not me.

"No," he said. "Erik will be good." He made a shrugging, resigned movement, determined to fight himself no more for this night, all the while pretending it was me he was no longer struggling against. The way his bony shoulders moved within the space defined by his starched shirt was something I never failed to find both arousing and oddly touching.

"Stand up," I said, and he obeyed.


	2. Silks and Velvets

I gestured toward his chest; he began to unbutton his shirt. When finished, he untucked his shirttails, and though he did all this painstakingly, carefully; he tossed the garment on the chair afterwards, not looking, instead of folding it up.

His bony chest gleamed pale – so pale – in the lamplight. Every rib was visible; his collarbones stood out in high relief. Despite this deceptive appearance of frailty, his wiry strength showed in the way that his taut muscles slid under his skin with every movement.

He was tense; tightly coiled. He blinked at me. I continued to regard him, unspeaking, and he dropped his gaze, though I could feel his expectation.

"Erik is but a poor specimen," he said.

"Would you like to see a contrast?" I asked. He nodded, once; curtly, almost unwillingly.

_Admit it, you yellow-eyed fiend_ , I thought. _Admit, just once, that you want me as much as I want you. Or at least admit that you desire my desire for you, if not myself._

I undid my dressing-gown, folding it neatly on the chair, then pulled my shirt over my head, folding it and depositing it on top of the dressing-gown. I looked back at him; he had raised his head, and one corner of his mouth crooked upwards.

We made quite a contrast: I, dark as a fig; he, pale as alabaster. I felt thick and clumsy by comparison; not fat, but with layers of once-solid muscle grown somewhat soft with disuse. He was, as always, whippet-lean and gleaming.

"Come here," I commanded. It was odd that in every respect but this, he was the leader and I the follower. In this matter alone he remained passive and would only be coaxed, when he would permit it at all. He advanced a few steps toward me.

"It has been a long time," I said. He nodded, betraying no emotion, though I could see the rapid movement of the pulse in his neck.

"I would see your face," I said, and heard his sharp intake of breath. I knew that I was pushing things; though I had seen that face before, he hated to show it, even to me. For him, this was somehow a deeper intimacy than the other. It made him vulnerable.

"No," he said, and now there was a note of pleading in his voice. "Please."

But I was determined to be as stubborn as he, for once. "Very well." I crossed my arms to signal: _Then there's an end to it._

He made a few awkward movements with his hands, standing there, already half-undressed, alternately glaring at me and shooting me fearful glances. Torn between dread and desire, that limbo in which I spent far too much of my time. I could almost hear his thoughts: _I don't want to give you this much of myself. What will you do with it?_

But I was adamant, and he was needful. At last, he consented, pulling off his mask and discarding it almost defiantly. "Look, then, if you must, daroga."

I looked him full in the face.

_You are truly ugly, my love. You are sublime in your hideousness: that face like no other; like a naked skull which yet lives. The sculpted planes of your cheekbones, the mysterious deep sockets of your eyes within which two flames eternally burn…you are an architectural marvel, a strange monument to the limits of variation permitted to the human animal. And yet, there are places where you are beautiful: the space between your collarbones, the back of your neck…_

"Well?" he said. Impatient. "If you would do, have done." He pushed a strand of lank, colorless hair out of his face; sometimes, as when making a gesture like this, he could look disarmingly young, though I knew him to be my age.

I gestured to the bedroom and he preceded me, back stiff as a poker. ( _I know each of the knobs on your spine so well…_ ) I followed, shutting the door behind me.

Inside the room, we found that Darius had lit a candle. Erik was shifting from foot to foot; it was one of his many nervous habits. His gaze would not settle. It flitted from the tapestries, over the silks and velvets, the patterned carpet, the silver statuettes, to the cabinet of inlaid wood. He looked at every object the room contained, in turn, though he had seen them all before. None of those things were what he was most aware of. His focus was the one thing my room contained at which he would not look directly: me.

He could see my arousal as well as I could see his, and this embarrassed him. I prolonged the moment because this was the one time during which I truly had any power over him at all, and that only because he let me. Still I relished it, this tiny edge, even while it made me ashamed of myself; he and I were not so different in some ways. That thought was not a comforting one.

Finally, I reached the limits of my patience and my private, petty revenge on him (about which he cared nothing) for always choosing the roles that both of us would play. I slowly removed my trousers and the rest of my apparel, revealing myself fully to his view. He stopped trying to look as though he were not looking, and stared openly at my body and at my sex, springing upright nearly to my belly.

"Behold, the instrument of my torment," he said dryly, mocking himself.

"Now, you," I said curtly, cutting him off. Again, he obeyed, disrobing in his turn. His breathing had become rapid, as had my own.

Erik's body was, in coloration, as in everything else, unique. The parts of his body which, in a normal man of his race, would have been a dark peach-pink – lips, nipples, that stiff and standing rod at his hips, his scars – were instead a grayish mauve, as if his blood were black, or perhaps blue. He had very little body hair. Even the hair on his head tended to be fine and sparse. I believed he had been born with grey hair.

I walked over to him. Tip touched tip, tantalizing; mauve to nut–brown, moving as we breathed. He shivered. I ran one hand from his neck to his loins, as if inspecting merchandise, then cupped my hand under his groin, squeezing gently. His eyes closed; his head fell back slightly. I took his hand and directed it to my arousal; he circled me with long, bony fingers, and began to stroke. I toyed with him, teasing, tickling, lightly touching; but did not stroke in return. He shifted his slender hips impatiently, but would not ask, trying to stifle the noises of pleasure that strained to escape his lips. And I withheld.

"Get on the bed," I said, abruptly.

His eyes flew open. "Daroga – Erik is not ready…"

"The bed," I repeated.

His mouth made a crooked "O" of surprise, but his eyes snapped with interest, and he did as I had bid him.

It was always a delicate balance, this game. If I did not push hard enough, he would lose interest. If I pushed too hard, he would take back the reins and vanish.

He seated himself awkwardly on the bed, not knowing what to do with his hands; painfully aware of his arousal. I loved to look at him there, set like a prized, exotic possession among the rich patterns of the silks and velvets, this creature I craved like a drug. He looked small and lost amongst all that luxury (for I liked my bedchamber to be comfortable), each quilt and pillow more brightly-colored than the last, and all of them more brightly-colored than he.

His bone structure was surprisingly small; his strength came from the iron bands of his muscles, his power from his indomitable will.

"Turn over," I commanded. It had been too long. I was lost, and could not contain myself.

"Not yet – " he began, but,

"Did you say 'No' to me?" I said. _I want you, Erik. Why won't you let me say that plainly?_

To my great relief, he turned over, meekly.

I climbed onto the bed and knelt, straddling his prostrate form, teasing the spare ivory mounds of his buttocks with the tip of my flesh. I could see him clenching his muscles, trying not to writhe, not to press himself into the softness of the bedclothes. I knew he wanted desperately to rub himself against the silky fabrics, and yet craved the exquisite agony of self-denial until the last possible moment.

I ran a hand down his spine, the knobs of which stood up like a miniature mountain range. 

His back was a sad tapestry of textures; smooth and rough – a relief map of his life's trials. I knew how he had come by some of the purple scars that crossed it, but not all of them; he refused to speak of the others. _I would take all your pain upon myself if I could, but you hold it to yourself like a lover._ I traced them with a finger – the markings on his flesh were old and twisted for the most part, but it still gave me pain to see them.

He shivered again beneath my touch; I too, was growing restless.

I put one of my fingers in my mouth, wetting it thoroughly. I placed my other hand flat on his back, which made him start to turn around, but before he could complete the movement, I thrust my dampened finger into that space between his ivory flanks quickly; roughly. Erik cried out, and my heart gave a strange leap within me. At such times I felt I could almost understand the reason for those hideous scars on his back (and the thought made me despise myself), though to look at them made me angry with myself as well as with the torturers of his past.

Erik's voice when he sang out in pain was much like his regular singing voice: clear, bell-like, and filled with a haunting, terrible beauty. Listening to him made my soul ache in tandem with my body.

So much that is beautiful has its origin in pain. A poem, an opera, a life…it is one of the arcane mysteries of existence.

And for right now, the marvelous creature from whose throat issued such unforgettable sounds was mine…

I added a second finger to the first, but this time Erik stifled his cry against one of the pillows.

I spread my fingers, testing. A muffled noise of protest arose from the head of the bed, but it was a weak one. And I had decided that I would have him. Now.

Removing my fingers, I teased the sensitive area which they had just abandoned with the swollen, thick head of my sex, then, pulling back slightly, thrust partway into him, evoking further moans. I made a few tentative movements inside him, raised his hips against me, then brutally thrust into him with my entire stiff length.

Erik screamed, pain and pleasure mingled.

I have you now, I thought. Oh, to be one with you always. Monster. My monster…

I withdrew, prolonging this, then plunged again, deep inside of him, as if I would pierce him clear to the heart. His muscles convulsed violently around me and I gasped. He would strangle me; I would stab him.

Again…

"Daroga!" Erik cried. I paid him no heed and thrust again, pulling his hips up and into me. 

I felt I wanted to crawl inside his skin. "Don't stop…" he trailed off, moaning with need, and began to meet my thrusts with backwards thrusts of his own. We moved together, joining fully, almost separating, again and again.

_Why do you let it go so long between times, my love, my torment? Why must we only come together through these games? I would openly confess things, but you would not want to hear them. Why…_

_Why do you never call me by my name, even at times like this?_

I sometimes wondered if he even remembered it; he only ever called me by my title. I had lost myself in him, become only the Persian. I had given up my country and my identity for his sake. Sometimes, when in the throes of passion, he would mutter a sound that might have been a name, but it was not one I recognized. I could not tell whether it was male or female; it might have been his own true name for all I knew.

But in this moment, the naming of things mattered not at all. We had become something other. We were one creature, a monstrous chimera; he had given some of his quality to me…

Sweat beaded on my chest and glistened on his back. I pulled him to me, upright. He sank back against me, gasping; my breathing was heavy and ragged. I reached down, at last circling his sex with one hand, beginning to stroke and squeeze. I felt him twitch and jump in my hand, straining for release.

He let out a groan as if a long siege of torture had at last ended, and reached down to brush my hand with one of his, a rare gesture of tenderness. I rested my cheek briefly against the back of his neck, and again we moved. And again.

My sex in his body. His sex in my hand. The waiting had been harder on him; he was more ready than I was. He gave a sob which seemed to catch in the back of his throat, and spent himself over my hand in great, hot spurts.

I felt the tension go out of him; I still drove into him even as his body relaxed until I reached my climax inside of him: hot, liquid, breathless.

We collapsed back onto the bed together, lying on our sides, still joined. I held him to me with one arm, running my free hand over his flat belly, smearing him with his own stickiness.

He sighed, closing his eyes. I finally drew out of him, gently, earning a sleepy sound of protest from the man whose body I'd just ravaged.

I looked over his shoulder; his eyes were closed. Erik had surprisingly long lashes within those deep sockets. You never saw them unless you were very close.

I lay curled against him, feeling the sweat dry and cool on his back. It was not until I heard his breathing settle and I knew he slept that I dared to whisper something in his ear…

I reached over carefully and pinched out the candle.

_I have never smelt the decay, the death, which you claim to find on yourself,_ I thought. _Though at times I have told you that I did. You have always smelt dry, sweet, and musky to me, like the rosewood casket in which my mother kept her jewels when I was a child._

_You have more grace and light in yourself than you realize, but you continually turn your face to the darkness, not seeing it._ For tonight, though, I would hold him and keep him, trying to impart some of my own light to him.

Although I had left my book forgotten on my chair, Rumi again came into my mind:

_It's no good giving you my heart and soul, because you already have these. So – I've brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me._

In the morning, I knew Erik would be gone. He'd steal away sometime before dawn, quiet as a cat. He would not speak of this nor of the times that had come before it, ever; would not appear to think of them - until the next time. Meetings of this nature were fewer and farther between, these days, and he was beginning to make noises about wanting a wife.

Someday, I knew, this would cease entirely, and I would lose him. For him, it was a way to pass the time and ease a hunger.

For me, it was something else.

Eventually, I too slept.


End file.
